Celeste A
- Research Program Mentor

DVM at Colorado State University

Expertise

biology, microbiology, physiology, medicine, python

Bio

I am a veterinarian who was trained at Colorado State University. I have have practiced veterinary medicine in both Kentucky and California. I am currently a biomedical researcher at the University of California, San Diego studying the microbiome. I am also a big supporter of the One Health movement, which aims to combine animal, human, and environmental health to help combat infectious disease and prevent pandemics. I enjoy talking about all things weird and wonderful.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Reptile Health Monitoring

It is notoriously difficult to determine the health a reptile. Because most are prey species, they tend to hide their illness. Routine monitoring of animal weight, skin shedding, as well as enclosure temperature and humidity can help identify a problem before it gets severe. The student will take these measurements over several weeks from their personal or friends' pets and record them in an excel file. That file can then be used in python to plot the information in graphs to see if we notice any problems/abnormalities.

Coding skills

python

Teaching experience

I am actively mentoring one Master's student and two undergraduates as a part of my PhD program. I have helped write youth curriculum while I was at UC Davis (https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8338.pdf). More recently, I have consulted on a curriculum for Ignited Education (https://www.igniteducation.org/).